


Midnight

by pessimisticvirtuoso



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: ???? I think?, Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Good Brotherly Love, Guy's got it rough, Hugs are both needed and provided, Hurt/Comfort, I just love torturing Stan geez, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Sea Grunkles, Stangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18991147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pessimisticvirtuoso/pseuds/pessimisticvirtuoso
Summary: There's a reason Stan tries to avoid sleeping.TW: Panic attack? I'm not too sure if it counts.





	Midnight

_His scream permeated through the beeping of the machines and the static in his mind. His shoulder sizzled as agony, sharp and hot, raced through him. His eyes were open wide, staring sightlessly at the wooden wall of the workroom, committing the grain to detail as the excruciation overwhelmed him._

_As soon as it had started, it was over. He slumped forward and hit the ground, laying on his side. His chest heaved for air as he tried to breathe through the pain. His whole face was contorted with the feeling, his eyes screwed shut and his jaw clenched. He vaguely processed his brother's voice but didn't hear the regret or concern in it. As far as he knew, the man in the room with him didn't even want him to be here, even after an entire decade apart._

_This knowledge pushed him upwards, his fist perfectly arching and landing straight in the other man's face. He staggered back, and Stan got back on his feet, watching his twin as he continued backward, tripping over (and consequently flipping) a lever. He clutched at his wounded shoulder, gritting his teeth through the pain radiating from the burn. He stalked over to him, the words leaving his mouth harsh in tone. The gateway behind Ford sparked dangerously._

_"Some brother you turned out to be. You care more about your dumb mysteries more than your family? Then you can have them," he bellowed. His hands, still holding the journal numbered '1', shoved against his brother's chest, sending him backward. The lighting of the room shifted, giving everything a purplish, then vermillion hue. The other grabbed at the journal, shocked, as he tilted, awaiting the harsh impact of the ground._

_It never came._

_Stan watched, horrified, as his brother began to float slowly toward the portal, which flared a deep crimson behind him. His brother's eyes were wide, and he swore that he saw a distinctive flash of horror in those blue eyes as he drifted further and further away from him. Ford let out a sharp gasp, his limbs struggling to grasp something, anything to hold on to._

_Stan was helpless- he knew in his **soul** that there was nothing he could possibly do to help his twin, who grew more and more frantic by the second._

_"Stanley! Stanley, help me!"_

_"What do I do?" What **could** he do?_

_"Do somethi-"_

_The rest of Ford's command was cut short by a deep, guttural scream that tore from the elder's chest. His body was beginning to shift and distort, minuscule pieces breaking off of him and getting sucked into the hole punched in reality. The hand holding the journal grew slack from the shock of it all, and the next swing of his arm launched the book in Stan's general direction. It hit the ground about two meters from his feet, bouncing and landing spine down. Journal 1 opened, and the pages fluttered under the otherworldly wind that whistled around the basement._

_Ford's screams began to distort and bend in pitch, becoming rawer and more visceral as the seconds passed by. Tears were streaming down the other's face from the pain. Stanley couldn't move, paralyzed by the inhuman noise his brother emitted. He could do nothing but watch. Stanford **writhed** in the air helplessly, the wind whipping his trench coat around him as if he were stuck in the middle of a hurricane. His wail grew higher in pitch before his voice completely gave out, leaving him silently screaming for someone, something, to help him._

_Stan's heart stopped when his brother completely broke apart- a harshly luminescent crack spread from his chest outward, spiderwebbing out to the rest of his body before the shards separated. There was no blood, no viscera, nothing but clean fractals. The primal, pleading, tortured expression of his brother pierced through his mind, his brain committing it to memory before it, too, splintered easily. The shards were immediately sucked into the portal, ridding the world of the last vestiges of his brother, who he might as well have killed._

_The circle of red stilled, becoming nearly flat in texture as opposed to the swirling, eerie pattern that it bore before. The sigils around the opening itself glowed brighter than before, almost blinding in intensity. The only warning he had before he was blinded by white light was the high-pitched whine of overworked technology._

_He felt pain like no other, like every atom on his body was set on fire, and just like that-_

-Stanley awoke with a shout flying from his lips. The older man laid in bed, staring up at wooden slats holding up his twin's mattress. His breath came heavily and fast as if he nearly asphyxiated in his sleep. The air smelled of salt, and the breaths he took by mouth left him with a slight taste of brine. His hand came to rest lightly on his chest as he attempted to calm himself down. He found it to be futile- he could already feel his breathing gradually become shallower, and his heart, which had just started to slow down a bit, picked up speed yet again, hammering away behind his ribcage. He didn't remember getting here. He shouldn't be here. Something was wrong with the entire world and he couldn't place it. Everything was off-kilter, something was coming for him but _dammit he just couldn't remember-_

"Stanley?"

The voice was deep with sleep and dripped with more than a little bit of confusion. It was familiar, though, and he found that the voice soothed him, even if just a little bit. His eyes darted over to his right, where a middle-aged man sat. His face had a red mark across his cheek, likely from laying down on a hard surface. He was dressed simply in a dark t-shirt and sweatpants. His hair was disheveled and there were bags under his eyes, but those seemed to be from age rather than a lack of sleep. The eyes themselves were droopy at first, but they opened wider nearly an instant after eye contact. The man stood from the chair he sat in, and gently, hesitantly, took a step toward him. What's he doing? Who _is_ he? Why was he in the room with him as he slept?

"Stanley, what's the matter?"

Was he 'Stanley'? Was that his name? Why didn't he know his own name?

The other man crept forward still, and Stan couldn't do anything but panic further as he sat on the edge of his bed. He tried to put distance between himself and this stranger, but he couldn't do anything other than scoot less than a foot before his back was flush against the wooden paneling of the wall. The other man wasn't blind, however, and seemed perturbed by his reluctance for close proximity.

"Lee, it's okay. It's me, Stanford. Your brother," he offered. His... brother? He had a brother? Is that why he was being so gentle and caring with him? The man reached a hand out towards him, and he stiffened. He wanted to shrink away, but he couldn't possibly. The man- Stanford, he said his name was- hovered his hand over his shoulder before tenderly establishing contact. Immediately, some of the tension in his muscles abated. How was this person so soothing to his nerves? How did he know his tells, what calms him down? The benevolent touch did wonders, ever-so-slowly relaxing him.

His brother kicked off whatever shoes he was wearing before bringing himself up on the bed proper. He stretched out beside him and Stanley instinctively tensed- what this man was doing felt so familiar yet made no sense on its own, and he had no idea how to feel about it. The hand on his shoulder paused briefly before it resumed its previous warm strokes on his deltoid. This man, who claimed to be related by blood, looked him in the eyes, which had begun to water from his myriad of emotions. His gaze was calm, even, open, and caring. The hand on his arm squeezed lightly.

"I remember when we were but only children," he began, his voice quiet at first, uncertain. "we had worked on a comically large pillow-and-blanket fortress in our room. It took up the entire space, and we used every blank and pillow in the house. Mother found it funny and charming, she even took pictures, but father naturally found nothing to be amused about. He yelled at us for being irresponsible and childish at nine years old, but it didn't bother any of us. We just laughed when he left," he said, his voice deep and smooth.

"There was also the time when we tried to make surprise cookies for mother on her birthday while she and father were both out of the house. You misread the recipe and thought it said a 'punch' of salt, not a pinch, so you dumped a whole handful in there. It was a shame too- that was the only batch that cooked right. Every batch after ended up burned. She found it charming, nevertheless. Thank goodness your cooking skill has improved since then, otherwise, we would both be going hungry. I know I sure haven't gotten much better."

Stanley remembers neither of these experiences, but the gentle rises and falls of his man's voice calmed his racing heart like a balm to his very soul. He listened with rapt attention, putting Herculean effort into trying to remember the past he had apparently shared with this pseudo-stranger.

"Then we found the Stan O'War- the original," he said. Stan felt a hazy picture coming into focus, of a cave with silvery sunlight streaming in from a crack in the ceiling. There was a small pond and resting on what could be called its beach was a shape. As his brother kept talking, he felt more pieces of the scene fizzle into existence. That shape was an old abandoned boat, damaged and rickety. There was someone else with him, but he couldn't make out their face. He felt like he should know them.

"I couldn't forget what happened at prom, either. We were seventeen, I believe, and you pissed father off so much when you came home with a pink rented tux. He started yelling something about how pink was a girl's color and he wouldn't tolerate a boy wearing it, but you still wore it with pride. I tried talking to Ophelia Daniels during the dance, remember? To this day I don't know what I did wrong, but she threw her punch all over me. I was a total mess. Then you came up beside me and tossed your punch over yourself like it was the most natural thing in the world to do," he said, his voice warm.

Stan had started staring at nothing, content to just listen to the stories he was being told, but he found that the man was smiling when he began to focus on his face again. He smiled so genuinely, full of compassion and nostalgia. Those blue eyes, equally familiar as they were foreign, held his own. By now, he was calmer, much more so than he had been when he woke up. Stan simply laid there as he tried to remember something. Anything.

"Not too long after that, we... separated, for a lack of a better term. We didn't talk for a full decade. I ended up in Oregon after I graduated college and sent you a postcard to visit. I'll spare you some of the crueler details, Stanley, but the condensed version is that I wanted you to take a journal of mine-" a torn, red cover and a gold handprint with the number '1' on it flashed through his mind. "-and hide it where nobody could find it. You weren't happy with the request. We... we fought, and I got sucked into my own creation, a portal to another dimension."

The harsh shadows cast from crimson light were something still fresh in his mind. The screaming rang in his ears, bouncing around in his skull like it was the only thing he had ever heard. He remembers the light spreading across his brother's skin in jagged, uneven paths, and remembered the look in his eyes before the remnants of his face were sucked in. That was... that was his brother. That happened to his brother. The man in front of him claimed to be his brother. Their faces looked the same. They... they were the same person; he was absolutely certain.

It was as if someone opened a dam when he came to this realization. Images, sounds, _sensations_ flashed through his mind, going so fast that Stan could barely process it. His brain spun, and Stan stared very pointedly at the microfiber sheets of his bed as he tried to ward off the dizziness. This was... wow. It was completely overwhelming and even more disorienting.

It all clicked into place- his childhood, the growing distance as teenagers, the project, his time on the streets, the years spent in the basement trying to bring his brother back, and the hostility between them, solved only when they both got over themselves after the apocalypse. He remembered his mind being completely erased, and his twin's proposal to join him at sea, with all of the scares and spontaneity that came with it.

Most importantly, he remembered his brother, his twin, his other half, and how close they were. He can't believe he had forgotten. Tears sprang into his eyes unwanted. Ford, who was still talking, paused as they leaked from Stan's eyes, trailing sideways over the bridge of his nose and soaking into the pillow. The younger of the two shakily raised a hand to cover his mouth after a quiet sob left him.

Stanford's hand, which had been idly resting on his twin's bicep, circled around to his back and began gently rubbing in circles. He felt the solid body under his hand shudder from the patterns of weeping, and his heart cracked to see his younger brother break down. His hand paused and applied a soothing, steady pressure to his shoulder blade, urging his brother to come closer. Unconsciously, Stan scooted closer to the elder, allowing himself to be comforted by simple physical contact. A hand cupped his head carefully as if he were made of glass, and he was gently pulled closer to the other.

"Ford," he managed, sounding high-pitched and reedy. He hated for anyone to see him like this. He couldn't stand crying- he hated the way he sounded, the loss of emotional control. He hated how he felt before, during, and after crying. He hated feeling to flayed open and raw emotionally. He hated everything about it, really, but if anyone were to be there for him as he went through it, he would have preferred it to be Ford.

"Shh. I'm right here, Stan. It's okay," he soothed. Stan certainly didn't feel okay.

"You- the portal-" He couldn't manage any more than that. The image of that shattered face came unbidden to his mind, and a whole new wave of tears welled up in his eyes. He sobbed miserably, just wanting to forget that he ever dreamed up something that had messed with him so bad. He wanted to forget that he was ever so affected by a dream at all, but it felt so realistic that if he didn't just regain the real memory of his brother entering the portal, he would have believed it to be true.

"I'm safe. You're safe. The kids are safe. You don't have to worry about it further, Stanley, I promise."

"Okay," Stan whispered, ashamed in his loss of control, yet grateful that Ford was being the brother he didn't deserve and helping him through it. "Okay."

Tears continued staining the fabric of his pillowcase, but it was okay. He was okay. Ford was okay. Dipper and Mabel were okay.

Everybody was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, a trope that pretty much everyone else has done before! But it's okay. When you write fanfiction you can only be so original. Enjoy my hot take on nightmare grunks. 
> 
> This wouldn't leave me be, and so I began writing this at 2 a.m. last night. Hope you liked it!
> 
> -JAMS


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